Special needs summer camps are specialized programs designed for children and young adults with a range of disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, Down syndrome, and other developmental or physical challenges.
Busy bags are like secret weapons for moms who need a few moments of peace without turning to screens. They're fun, easy to put together, and full of creative play that toddlers and preschoolers will actually enjoy.
Lego's new Smart Play system, announced at CES earlier this week, is an embrace of digital technology the likes of which we haven't seen from the company before. And while the demonstration it gave on Monday was a good start towards showing just what Lego's Smart Brick is capable of, there's no substitute for seeing it in person. Fortunately, an extended demo answered a lot of my questions on how the system will work once
Parents tell me this all the time, often with a mix of frustration and worry: My child just can't focus the way I could at their age. School feels harder. Emotions escalate faster. Distraction seems constant. But attention isn't a moral trait. It isn't a virtue some children have and others lack. Attention is a cognitive capacity-and it is deeply shaped by the conditions surrounding a child: sleep, stress, sensory overload, and the environment in which we're asking focus to happen.
That someone "should get out more" is usually said as a joke, a light comment aimed at someone who seems stuck or overly absorbed in a narrow concern. It can sound dismissive or even sarcastic. Yet what if it contains serious psychological truth? We often praise people for being open-minded, creative, or flexible, as if these are stable personality traits that some individuals simply possess. We admire those who seem to think differently and assume they have access to something rare.
A DRIAN CROOK, a father of five from Vancouver, has always known what danger looks like: it's a boxy stamped-metal contraption, with four wheels, a transmission, and a hood. When Crook was a teenager in the '90s, his high school friend Sheri was killed in a car crash. She was coming back from a party with three friends when the driver lost his bearings and wrapped the vehicle around a pole.
On Monday, the Danish toy maker debuted a new computer science and AI curriculum for K-8 classrooms, Lego's first foray into AI that comes more than three years after the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The "Lego Education Computer Science & AI" kits include Lego bricks and other interactive hardware components, as well as online education materials intended to take children from the beginning stages of AI literacy through hands-on experimentation.
As a parent myself, I know what I'm mostly looking for when buying another toy is that it'll ACTUALLY keep my kids engaged long enough to bring a sliver of peace to my home (a tough task, to say the least!). From Magna-Tiles and the new Toniebox 2 to colorful sensory tubes and a LeapFrog Touch and Learn eReader, my kids have tried out enough of these items to lead you in the right shopping direction!